Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

[Radja]

i actually really liked 10 but since 11 was just a slight improvement with game play and no improvement with the franchise aspects, it was pointless to purchase it with nba 2k11 coming and some other games i was already playing.

besides, i was still enjoying my previous franchise. there is simply no way i can justify spending 59.99 or subscribing to sports illustrated for a simple roster update.

that being said, i do believe i will be getting 12, if the follow through with some significant franchise improvements. why they cannot have a real injured reserved list and increased pre-season roster size in the next gen systems is as chaz michael michael says, mind bottling. it was in 2k5 on the ps2.

[MAzing87]

For the first time ever, I skipped Madden this year. I threatened to do it a couple of years ago, but I really didn't bother to check Madden 11. I was surprised at first but then again, I'm not. It was hard for me because I love the game of football, I have played on the collegiate level, and love the NFL. After playing Madden 08-10, I just noticed that I wasn't having any fun with the arcadey feel and dumb AI. With this being the only NFL game out, I expected a very high quality NFL game. But in my opinion, its not even close. My focus was always the franchise mode & the career mode, more so than online. No real changes or improvements were made in those modes and that was a turn off. When I played online, I hated the fact that people would disconnect because they were losing. So I didn't play much online.

Anyway to close. This was a surprise to read. I really didn't think sales would drop since there is a Madden cult following every year. But it turns out that there are gamers out there who are getting fed up much like how I did. EA is a powerhouse company that can put out a great football game. They just choose to put minor things in to call them features every year, taking full advantage of the fact that they are the only company to put out a licensed product. All for the maximum profit.

[Nunyerbiz]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

I don't think it's reasonable to compare NBA2K11 selling well and Madden not selling well and draw any conclusions about "sim vs casual". I just don't see the connection. NBA is seeing a large sales increase because they made a major leap in the gameplay. They improved the foundation, but they didn't completely change directions. It wasn't like NBA was an arcade game and they suddenly went "hardcore sim" and the money started falling from the sky. NHL 11 is, by most accounts, the most realistic / sim friendly title to date yet the sales are dissapointing.

The 2K folks made major improvements in what used to be a complete joke of a basketball AI system and added some good marketing touches (Jordan)... that's basically it. The game had a weakness, a weakness that effected anybody who played it, and they vastly improved it. The improved AI benefitted everybody. I'm a casual hoops gamer, and I got bored pretty quickly with being able to shoot 70% and drive to the hoop with my eyes closed regardless of difficulty settings when I played NBA2K9/10. They just were not great games. When the 2K11 reviews hit and word of mouth spread that they took the 3 or 4 star games from 2K9/2K10 and pushed them closer to 5 star territory, sales followed.

Madden hasn't had any such "major leap" since who-knows-when... the PS2 days? Madden is behind the 8-ball with the foundation, but that has nothing to do with catering to a certain fanbase or needing to change the direction of the franchise. You make a sports game with that solid foundation and it's not terribly difficult to give gamers an experience that varies from casual to sim just based on sliders. If you are constantly recycling the same lackluster foundation for three straight years then both casual and hardcore gamers are going to take notice and spend their dollars elsewhere.

[BezO]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% from last year

Agreed.

I can see why EA tries to take this approach with Madden, and while the game has improved, it doesn't have a unified focus and it shows in the final product.

I've grown tired of comparing Madden to other sports games, but it seems games like NBA2K have a singular focus: to be the most authentic NBA game down to the very fine details. That includes gameplay, presentation, atmosphere, everything.

Madden tries to be everything to everybody, and while I see what they're attempting to do, no one is completely satisfied. It doesn't work.

I believe Madden could be everything to everybody. EA needs not to aim at the low end to do so.

Assuming casual fans make up the majority of Madden sales like folks say, the only thing differentiating a casual fan from a sim one is ease of play. A casual fan is not looking to avoid sim as I define it as it has nothing to do with difficulty. Both casual and sim fans should be able to enjoy a realistic game of football. The sim fan just wants more of a challenge, using knowledge & skill to win.

It seems easy to me. Make the most realistic game of football with working, dynamic difficulty levels & sliders.

And to clarify what I believe sim is, it's recreating the sport. It should look & play like football. Players moving how they do IRL and keying & reacting to what they do IRL is the key. How hard it is to execute is a separate matter IMO. How involved you have to be is a separate matter.

In today's market, you have to have a realistic and smooth presentation as well as good and well balanced gameplay. If you have both, a game doesn't have to play realistic in the sense of true to life stats in order to be considered realistic. From a psychological point of view, a lot of the gaming experience is believing what you are seeing and a good chunk of us experience a majority of our sports via the TV. The key to a good game is mimicking that delivery with gameplay that's well-balanced (ie neither the defense or offense has a built in advantage due to how the game is played). Of course, that discussion is something I'm saving up for a future Op-Ed for the frontpage at some point

This is what I'm saying above, but differently.

IMO, stats are another thing that I separate from realism. Stats are related to difficulty. The easier the game, the more yards/points you can score. But I believe the game can still be ultra realistic with a low difficulty setting that allows for big stats. There are big stat games IRL all the time. I believe a couple of QBs have thrown for 400 yards this year. A. Foster ran for 200+ in game 1. There was nothing unrealistic about any of those performances.

What EA needs to do is minipulate difficulty while improving gameplay/realism, AI, animations & authenticity. They can add effort & fluidity to animations without making the game harder. They can add gap & contain assignments without making the game harder. They can add engaged player mobility that will allow for better passing pockets, outside runs & punt blocking, without making the game harder. They can tier the defensive play calling without making the game harder. Along with tv-style presentation, these are things that give gamers what they see on Sundays. A casual fan may not understand everything he sees, but can still enjoy it looking like what he sees on Sundays.

I still think the mistake they made was starting from scratch when they went to current generation. The Show, NBA 2K, and College Hoops 2K meanwhile built off what they had already started and were light years ahead of EA. EA can't even catch up with what they already had in last generation. Outside of NHL all of their sports series are in the dumps, I think NCAA Football this year is decent but you can't get too deep into Dynasty Mode without all sorts of flaws.

I think the difference is that those games had better, more flexible engines. What they started with last gen allowed for significant additions. Madden's programming sounds like it's more rigid, thus harder to provide what many of us are looking for.

I'll never forget an EA quote many years ago implying that gang tackling was not possible on last gen systems. I don't know if the rep was unaware or just being arrogant, but 2K had already implemented gang tackling at the time of the statement. I imagine that that EA rep really meant that last gen systems couldn't handle it the way they would need to do it given their current programming.

[Keith121212]

Ok, here is my take on this game from an older gamer that has played them all. I don't play it nearly as much as used to because it just feels stale to me. In order for them to pick up new players and get the old player back is to A). make the game LOOK different. B). It must play different C). Season modes must be addictive

What I mean by A). this game has really looked the same since last gen except for the higher res HD graphics. There are no new playable camera angles or innovative cameras. There is no user create cameras. There should be multiple camera angles taking place through-out the play on the field. When I run the ball I want a certain camera, when I pass I want another one, when I kick field goals... you get my point. They are and have been all the same for years.

B). The feel of this game really hasn't changed much over the years either. Players still slide around and even though improvements have been made to locomotion and pro tack it really is a small improvement over all IMO.

C). doesn't need much explanation... It needs to be user friendly and addictive.

Thanks,

Blitz

EXACTLY. The game is the same old Madden that has been out for years and most people can see that. The underlying gameplay hasn't significantly changed since 2001!

[SynShadowzz]

Just wanted to chuck in the old .2 cents.

I have played Madden in 2 years. My reasons are simple:

A.) I was annoyed with buying the same game year after year after year without any sort of decent upgrade.

B.) I enjoy the NCAA franchise way more now.

C.) It became way too "arcade-y"

D.) NCAA Dynasty = 100x more fun than a Madden Franchise.

[dcsoldier]

what about the gamers like me that sold Madden, do they have record on returns or trade in's. I'm that number would be huge.

madden has the worst turn-around rate of any sports title....and sports titles have the worst turn-around rate of all genre sooooo it might be safe to say that madden is traded in the quickest of any game out there

gamecrazy and gamestop both confirmed that madden is the quickest traded in title of any sports game.

[dcsoldier]

This is probably the furthest from the truth. Madden sales are probably close to flat if anything on the current consoles, combined with DLC and whatnot they are almost certainly getting more per purchased copy than ever before.

Meanwhile there were reports like these that were conveniently skipped over...

http://news.softpedia.com/news/NPD-S...t-155922.shtml

http://gamertvnetwork.com/index.php/...t/article/1135

http://www.gameseyeview.com/2010/09/01/madden-nfl-11-seeing-strong-august-sales/

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/216925/september-sales-results-halo-madden-and-zombies-dominate/

Relative to other games in the lame new NPD reports Madden is where it was expected, but don't let that get in the way of pointing out the 1 liner of negativity out of context with no real data so it can actually be understood from this month's NPD.

People will see the flashy headline and assume the above though, that's for sure. Criticize people for using vgchartz, but then putting stuff like this out there, in addition to linking to the pretty much debunked previous article, what's that about credibility?

dude madden cash flow is dying....wake up.

the game has been underselling for years now and people still think that its doing good.....
back in 06 most of the copies were purchased at regular price because the game sold like crazy.....now the game is being sold at discounted price so its not accurate to look at the volume of sales. they are loosing money period......a stock that was once in the 35-40 dollar range is 15 dollars now.....c'mon man use some common sense here.

[Segagendude]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

Meh, they'll just blame it on the economy and won't change a thing.

[dcsoldier]

i doubt that casual fans make up majority of madden fanbase.......casual fans don't comeback every year to buy the same game over and over again. 2k proved this with this year's game......go after the core of the fanbase and not the outer layers of fans that don't commit to buying the title each year.

the truth is that only a hardcore fan will comeback and buy a sports title each time it comes out.

[Rashad19]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y from last year

I think one of the down falls of the Marketing Department is they seem to make the madden team add stuff into the game they think fans would love to have. But they failed at that. Another example of how the Marketing has failed EA in the last few years on madden is Josh Looman. When they brought Josh Looman in the Madden Department. Josh main focus was at first was going to be the franchise mode. But that quickly failed when they changed Josh job from working completely on franchise mode to working on this MUT stuff. I understand some people enjoy MUT and all. But that is not what Josh was brought in for. Josh was one of the leading guys who worked on HC 09 and made it's franchise mode on HC 09 a big success. That is why he was brought in. To work on Madden franchise mode. But yet the Marketing Department change that around quickly and made him work on something like MUT that is completely worthless in my eyes. I felt we as fans was lied to by EA on the reason Josh was brought into madden in the first place. His job was to work on Franchise mode and to make it much better. Now 2 years later and franchise mode is still the same. I really hope that madden crew does something big franchise mode this year. Atleast that would be a good step in the right direction for the madden serias for 2011 coming up.

I have wondered about this same thing myself. I thought Josh's primary focus of joining the team was too revamp the franchise mode similar that of Head Coach. How he ended up in charge of MUT is beyond me. Classic case of management not utilizing talent properly. I have no idea what this team's vision is right now.

[BezO]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

i doubt that casual fans make up majority of madden fanbase.......casual fans don't comeback every year to buy the same game over and over again. 2k proved this with this year's game......go after the core of the fanbase and not the outer layers of fans that don't commit to buying the title each year.

the truth is that only a hardcore fan will comeback and buy a sports title each time it comes out.

Agreed. By definition, a casual fan is not that serious about the game. But I think casual has come to equal arcade, pick-up-and-play-type gamer.

[shavane]

The sales are down because even though it is much improved its still basically the same game as the last 5-7 years. There hasn't really been any groundbreaking changes to the graphics, gameplay, momentum, or anything so its basically a roster update every year. They need to use a new true next gen engine that showcases true speed, weight, and momentum. I give a game like backbreaker credit because even though their game was downright horrible the interactions on the field are alot closer to where next gen gaming should be.

If NBA2k11 is any indication of the direction sports games should go imagine what 2k11 would look like today. Madden needs to stop being so complacent and move outside its comfort zone. I play Madden everyday but I'm always feeling that the game could be so much better by now. I truly hope that the NFL liscense is open to all developers in 2013 so that we have more options to choose from and at the same time push everyone to make better football games.

[rooney8]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

After analyzing the data and receiving word from a few trusted analysts this is definitely a Monthly drop from last October of 18%. This means after Madden sales started out on a rush, they have plummeted as the product has stayed on store shelves. The real test will be the Christmas shopping season. Roughly 30% of Madden's sales come from Christmas-time sales. If sales are still down substantially in November and then December, things could get ugly for EA. As it is right now though, this is a sharp drop worth watching. Edited the original article to reflect these clarifications.

These figures are mostly affected by Madden10's strange sales. Sales this year were up August and September but that's against some very bad Madden10 sales. Now it's being compared to Madden10 sales that were unusually strong for the Christmas months.
Whether it finishes slightly up or slightly down they are terrible sales. Without Elite NBA 2K11 sold 1.15 million units in October, 60 percent more than last October's combined sales for NBA 2K10 and NBA Live 10." So they took Elites sales and increased their own also. This is what Madden probably had in mind when they signed the exclusive deal. In 2004 over 9m copies of Madden05 and Nfl25k were sold on just Ps2 and Xbox. Then EA made a huge investment to get the exclusive deal but instead of increased sales they have actually decreased which is an incrediblle feat. I guarentee EA would have been projecting 13m+ sales of Madden in 2010 back when they signed the exclusive deal.
As for people hoping they will now start listening to fans on places such as OS I don't think so. I have heard them say that hardcore gamers make up around 10% of gamers and we are just more vocal than any other group. Unless that view changes they will continue to cater to what they think is the bigger market. Here's what EA CEO said about Medal of Honor getting a fairly average Metacritic score:

"First off, the game is rated mid-70s, almost 20 ratings rated 90 or above," Riccitiello said. "So as an observation, mid-70s is generally perceived to be pretty good. I think, ultimately, what happened there and pretty much as we'd expected, the game appeals really well to a mass market, your average gamer." "There is a small minority of folks, sometimes well represented by core gamer reviewers or game magazine reviewers, where best I can tell there's been 80 or 90 hours a week playing first-person shooters," he continued. "They are very core to that segment, and some of them didn't like the title. I don't know who spends 80 or 90 hours a week playing a first-person shooter, but if they do, they probably have very very very specific tastes.

Medal of Honor has a metacritc score of 75 and sold just over 1m in October. Call of Duty Black Ops has a metacritic score of 88 and sold around 5.6m copies in North America and the United Kingdom on release day.
If EA don't realise the masses, hardcore gamers and critics all want close to the same thing they will continue to get steam rolled by companies who do.

[dcsoldier]

a lot of it is word of mouth......if i tell you that a movie sucks don't go see it, you will at least have that thought in the back of your head and even possibly not go see the movie...difference is though that a movie is 10 bucks to go see and a game is 65. that being said, people sometimes go on sites such as this one and read the reviews prior to making a game purchase. 2k11came out the gates like a beast and everyone said its one of the best sports games ever. having reviews like that will not make you think twice about going to your local best buy or gamestop and making the purchase. on the other hand, i think madden had a review of 5.5/10 which is laughable......so folks decided to not buy and maybe buy when the game drops in price.